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Places I’ve lived include…

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Places I’ve lived include…

I’ve only lived a few places in my life, and most of them have been here in Michigan.

I was born in Manistee, which is a city anyone interested in our family history should be familiar with. Manistee was home to your Grandma’s family. While your Great Grandma Schmitzer’s house is no longer there (the one my siblings and I used to visit when we were children), there are several other homes, churches, and rocks (okay, only one rock—but it’s a big one!) from our family’s past that still dwell there. There is also an elderly man living in Manistee—90-some years old—who was your Grandma’s godfather (and also her first cousin, once removed). Your Uncle Steve and Grandma (and Grandma’s mom, and both of Grandma’s grandparents) were born there as well. Your Great Grandpa Schmitzer (the musician!) taught for many years at the Lutheran school in Manistee. He and his wife are buried in Manistee. Lots of family history in Manistee.

But there’s a lot of family history in Marquette, also. In 1984, our family (your grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles) moved to Marquette—to the big green house on Ridge Street, just across and down the street from Peter White Public Library. Most of my childhood memories revolve around that house, that neighborhood, that Peter White parking lot where we used to roller skate around and around and around that center island until we collapsed, that white house on the corner where the funny old lady swept her grass with a broom, the Campbell’s house—which was first Sarah Jean’s grandma’s house, who was my very first best friend (Sarah, not her grandma)—where the boys played and the girls were teased, Jim’s Party Store where we used to buy Tootsie Rolls for a penny apiece, the walk down Ridge Street—through the oldest and wealthiest homes in Marquette—on warm summer days to pass the enormous green flower pot and go swimming at McCarthy’s Cove, the hill behind Parkview where we used to sled in the winter…

I have lived few other places—Hancock, Houghton, Munising—but Manistee and Marquette hold special places in my heart. I hope you always remember your hometown and all the things and people there that make up who you are.

Heidi, it seems to me that the last time we looked for it, we thought it had moved. Isn’t that odd? Maybe it was one of those mind tricks that your childhood memories sometimes play on you (like when you think your backyard was HUGE as a child, then go back and find out it was really only a moderate-sized yard), but I really think the rock had moved. But…yes. It’s still there (and…another mind trick…not as big as it was when we were kids). :)